Two Faced? Me? Never?

You may recall a few days ago I showed a photo of a bus parked in a coach bay (buses stop and pick passengers up all along a route, coaches only pick up at pre arranged places). Now here is a picture of a coach parked on a bus stop. In Brixham Town Square. The most congested 0.0036 sq km on the planet. Gridlock has been known to occure in Brixham up to 10 times a day in the summer. Brixham is addicted to gridlock. Drop of a hat, gridlock. Drop an H, gridlock.

And unlike the bus in the coach bay the other day this coach is causing chaos. I cannot get on the stop to drop off my passengers and the only place I can stop is in the middle of the road bringing Brixham to a stand still for the 3 minutes it takes to get 75 people of the bus. I have to stop at the stop or close by so my passengers know where to get back on the bus to go back to Torquay where as the coach driver can drop off in several locations around town, all of which should be marked on the map his company should have given him so he knows where the coach bays are situated when he goes to a new destination. Or am I away with the fairies and no such maps of coach bays in strange towns exist for coach drivers to use, now there's a market idea for someone.

A Bit of Fun in Brixham

Today (Saturday) and tomorrow Bolton Cross in Brixham is being dug up and resurfaced so no double deckers can get to the stop on Bank Lane. A small 38 seater is being used to shuttle passengers round the back streets from there to half way up New Road where the number 12 is dropping it's passengers and turning round, picking up a new set of passengers and heading for Paignton, Torquay and Newton. Problem is New Road isn't that wide so we are having to do a right hand reverse into Cudhill Road. I have done this trick once before several years ago when a car coming out of the petrol station hit a car going down New Road. But that was early on a Sunday morning, not on a busy Saturday afternoon made worse by the fact that cars were going down New Road, the drivers then discovering exactly what was written on that small yellow notice at the top of the road they had gone past going too fast to read, doing a turn in the road and coming back up. Also when my 50 passengers got off my bus they had to be sheparded across the road by two controllers down there to oversee the exercise before I could pull over to the right hand side of the road and then reverse in to Cudhill. Then I had to pick up an other 50 passengers waiting for me. What made it slightly worse is there isn't much room in New Road and the bus in front of me was running late for some reason so I had to wait out of the way in a lay by half a mile up the road while that bus did all the things I have just described. For 14 minutes. A fun day in Brixham.

The road works are still on tomorrow but I wont be going anywhere near them as I have a day off and the sun is going to shine (according to the BBC) so I am going to watch Torquay Rugby under tens in the morning and an afternoon taking photos followed by a pint or two, possibly 3.

Rock Walk starts on Monday. More good fun.

Brixham and the Traffic Lights

This is Brixham yesterday afternoon. Which ever way you look nothing is moving. Except the pedestrians. And they're all having a good laugh at us poor drivers.

I got there about 5 mins past one and as I drove into the Town Square a driver who was just leaving got on the radio and warned me that there could be a problem with the traffic lights. They had taken 4 minutes to change he said. When I got in I managed to get half way round the square before coming to a stop. I remained stopped for 4 minutes. I finally made it to the bus stop, which is on the left of the red car you can see in the picture on the left. I loaded up and managed to pull of the stop. 7 minutes later and the lights still hadn't changed. The driver at the front of the queue finally decided that he would risk going through the lights on red but choose the moment to go when a number 12 came round the corner. Even more chaos.

All in all from entering the Town Square to getting out, and it isn't all that big took 17 minutes. I had called control and asked them to ring Town Hall and explain that we had a serious problem down here in Brixham but Brixham is a long way from the Town Hall in Torquay both in miles and attitude and the man finally arrived at 6 pm the fix the lights. I did here some drivers being stuck for up to 45 minutes trying to get in and out of Brixham during the afternoon. And the Brixham Park and Ride starts to morrow for a week.Lets hope the man who fixed the lights did a good job.

Mind you Brixham can get gridlocked at the drop of a hat at the best of times during the summer and with the 12, 12A and 12B all trying to us a bus stop that only really fits one bus plus all the coaches dropping their parties of the summer should be fun.